The Wild Fox of Beacon
by Konoha's Demon Child
Summary: Soon after joining the war, Naruto is captured by Tobi and the Nine-Tails is extracted. Not wanting him to interfere with his plans any longer, Tobi uses a Ten-Tails-enhanced Kamui to send him far away. How will Naruto fare in a world of Grimm, Faunus and Hunters? And what is this strange new ability he has? Fox!Naruto. Pairings uncertain at the moment. ON HIATUS
1. Strange New World

**A/N: This is something that came to me after I rewatched the entirety of RWBY Volume 1 in preparation for the premier of Volume 2. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or RWBY. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto and RWBY is owned by RoosterTeeth.**

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**Chapter 1: Strange New World**

Suspended in the air in front of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, sixteen-year-old Naruto Uzumaki could do nothing but scream in immense mind-numbing agony as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was brutally ripped from his body. Despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, he remained conscious throughout the entire torturous process as his mind repeatedly went over the most recent events in a futile attempt to distract him from the pain.

The previous day, he and Killer Bee, the Jinchuriki of the Eight-Tails, had broken free from the multi-layered self-repairing barrier that kept them confined on the gigantic Island Turtle and the two had immediately made their way to the battlefield to help in the war, neither of them feeling that it was right for them to hide whilst others fought to protect them. Upon their arrival, they had split up, believing that they would be able to do more that way than if they stayed together. After this, the young blond didn't really know what his new comrade had done but, if Jiraiya was to be believed when he had once told him that apparently the Nine-Tails had to be sealed last, it wasn't looking good. Once the two had gone their separate ways, Naruto had used his new Negative Emotions Sensing and a lot of shadow clones to deal with a whole host of impostors that had somehow infiltrated the Allied Shinobi Forces and turned into identical strange white plant people after being defeated.

After that, the orchestrator of the war, the masked Tobi, had appeared in front of him with his own personal version of Nagato's Six Path's Technique, using what he later found out to be the resurrected Jinchuriki of the Two- through Seven-Tailed Beasts, each sporting a Sharingan in their right eye and a Rinnegan in their left and each having had their respective Demons resealed into them. Try as he might, the blond simply couldn't compete with the six revived Shinobi, each apparently fully capable of using their tenants' powers, especially with the coordination provided by their Rinnegan.

Personally, Naruto thought that he'd done quite well against them as he'd lasted an entire hour and forced all of them to fully transform. But that had been what had ultimately beaten him as a single Jinchuriki incapable of completely transforming stood no real chance against six Tailed Beasts. After being immobilised in such a way that even he couldn't think of a way out, the other Tailed Beasts were quickly resealed back into the giant statue that had been summoned and then the extraction had begun.

With a final surge of even more intense agony, the last of the fox was torn from his flesh, the seal on his stomach now nothing more than a slight discolouration of his skin, and locked within the statue. Now that what was presumably the final Tailed Beast was inside, the colossal figure began to distort as its nine eyes melded together, turning a bright crimson eerily reminiscent of the Uchiha clan's prized Kekkei Genkai as numerous tomoe appeared on the concentric circles surrounding the pupil, and a stump formed on the back of its waist before expanding out into ten distinct appendages.

As he lay on the ground, barely clinging to life and surrounded by imperceptibly faint wisps of red chakra, Naruto could do nothing but watch in horror as the statue slowly climbed to its feet and continued to morph into the Ten-Tailed Beast, the creature that had almost destroyed the world. The mammoth creature eventually managed to stand up properly, each movement sending tremors through the ground, and promptly crushed the entire Allied Shinobi Forces platoon that were attempting to stealthily retrieve the blond. Tobi then turned his attention back to the young Konoha ninja, curious as to why the platoon would risk themselves like that for a corpse and was surprised to see him alive, though the mask hid this from view.

"How are you still alive?" the masked terrorist asked in sheer amazement before remembering exactly who he was talking to. "Of course, you're an Uzumaki so you survived the extraction just like your mother did," he muttered, more to himself than Naruto. "You're entire family seems to exist for the sole purpose of causing me trouble and I've had enough." This last sentence was spoken so quietly that the near-dead blond couldn't actually make it out.

It wouldn't have made any difference if he had heard it as he was currently incapable of movement and struggling to stay conscious, so the young Uzumaki could do nothing as the space around him seemed to distort as Tobi activated his space-time technique, empowering it with the Ten-Tails' chakra so that it became capable of punching through the various dimensions. Mere seconds later and the former Jinchuriki was gone, a small shallow crater being the only sign that he had ever been there at all, never to be seen again in the Elemental Nations.

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In the middle of a dense forest, two strange-looking and ferocious animals were currently attacking each other. One of the creatures resembled a vaguely bipedal wolf, covered head to toe in shaggy black fur. It had bone-like claws on the ends of each finger and toe along with numerous bone spikes protruding out of its spine and arms, with a couple more adorning its knees and ankles. Despite all of these unusual features, the wolf's most distinguishing characteristic was the bone mask that covered the top half of its head. The mask had small holes for the beast's nostrils and larger ones for its ominously glowing red eyes and it also had several red lines decorating the top surface.

The other creature was similar to the first in that it was covered in shaggy black fur and had similar bone claws, spikes and mask but this one was much larger than the wolf and resembled a bipedal bear instead. Whereas the wolf seemed to be built more for speed the bear was obviously built for physical strength and the current fight demonstrated this perfectly. Every time the bear tried to strike the wolf, the smaller animal would dodge and whatever the bear's paw struck would undoubtedly break.

Just as the two beasts clashed yet again, the air around them began to warp as a vortex formed, ripping their bodies apart, and deposited the barely alive, and by now unconscious, form of Naruto Uzumaki. The vortex disappeared as quickly as it had initially formed, leaving the blond alone in a strange forest surrounded by the carcasses of two abnormal black animals, the blood quickly evaporating into the air.

The faint wisps of red chakra that surrounded the young shinobi, the only remnants of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that were still present in his body, soon got to work doing what that chakra always did and started to heal him, despite the lack of conscious instruction as healing was by this point ingrained in the chakra. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough energy left to bring the blond firmly back to the land of the living and the demonic energy was dimly aware of this due to carrying miniscule slivers of its originator's intelligence. Fortunately, there were two very recently killed animals lying in pieces around the Uzumaki that were giving off their own faint, not to mention unfamiliar, energy. Not wasting any time, the red chakra quickly harvested this strange power and it proved to be just enough to stabilise its host so that it wouldn't immediately die.

And so, Naruto spent his first night in Remnant unconscious in the middle of the vast forest, the red wisps of power around him now dyed black with its recent augmentation and working hard to keep him alive, and barely a handful of pieces of the two creatures that had been present. Luckily, the mixture of the two different energies proved to be an effective deterrent to keep the forest's other inhabitants away.

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It took several days for the former Jinchuriki to finally regain consciousness and when he did, he couldn't help but look around in confusion at his surroundings. All of the trees around him reminded him of the forests surrounding Konoha yet he could tell that he was not there. The trees seemed too different and the cacophony of howls and growling was something that simply wasn't present around the Hidden Leaf Village.

As he stood up, Naruto noticed the black haze surrounding his body that reminded him of the red chakra that would materialise whenever he used the fox's power. Raising an arm, he noted that the fog followed his movements and, unless he was mistaken, was actually being given off by his own body, since it was continuously dispersing in the air yet wasn't getting any thinner. It was at this point that the blond became aware that his chakra, which was still present albeit running low, felt different than it used to, both normally and when mixed with natural energy for Sage Mode. Deciding to experiment, he quickly formed the ram hand seal and channelled as small an amount as he could, not wanting to exhaust what little he had if at all possible. This test had two main results; the first being that his chakra control was shot to hell as he accidentally called forth far more than he wanted and the second was that the strange mist enveloping him immediately became denser.

Not wanting to drain himself, Naruto quickly cut off all chakra and noted that the miasma thinned considerably, thus allowing him to see what else had changed since he had been sent to wherever he was. His fingernails and toenails were noticeably sharper and longer and, when he scratched his ear which was beginning to itch, he found that said ear was covered in a thin layer of hair and the ear itself seemed slightly larger than he remembered.

Before he could contemplate this, the lost young man was interrupted by a loud growl originating from his stomach, notifying him that he hadn't eaten for the best part of a day, not to mention however long he was unconscious. Immediately, Naruto reached for his waist pouch which contained rations that all shinobi carried, even if most avoided eating them whenever possible, but found most of his pouch missing, only the thin loop that connected it to his trousers remained, and also discovered that his clothes were covered in bloody rips; something he put down to Tobi's technique that was responsible for his current predicament.

Unable to eat his emergency rations, the blond turned his attention to his surroundings in the hopes that there was something for him to eat, or kill and then eat if necessary since he, like all shinobi, had basic training on catching wild animals and carving up the body for safe eating. Thankfully, there were several chunks of animal flesh scattered around him that he had somehow not noticed until that point, which meant that he wouldn't have to hunt anything on an empty stomach.

Despite his shinobi training telling him to not eat random meat on the ground without a way to verify that it wasn't poisoned or otherwise inedible, Naruto really didn't want to try and track down an animal in his current starving state. He picked up one of the pieces of meat, absently noting that there was virtually no blood present at all, and sniffed it to check that it hadn't gone off. He was unable to cook the meat, since those supplies were in the pouch with his rations, but even if he had them to hand he would be hesitant since the smell would undoubtedly lure in the local wildlife. Satisfied that the meat was not rotten, the blond took a very small bite, ready to spit it out if needed. To his surprise, the taste wasn't all that bad considering it was raw, although a cooked meal would always be better, and soon finished off the entire chunk bar the bones and fur.

After finishing his meal, Naruto quickly decided that the most important thing for him to do right then was to try and figure out where he was and, if possible, return to the battlefield to continue the fight against Tobi. With this in mind, he climbed the nearest tree with the intent on surveying the area from above. To be more precise, he attempted to climb the nearest tree only to be painfully reminded that his chakra control was practically non-existent at the moment and, as such, tree-walking was beyond him for the time being. Not one to be put off by single failure, the blond instead chose to see if he could use his almost claw-like nails to aid his climbing attempt instead and, after a few false starts and several falls, managed to eventually make it to the top.

Looking over his surroundings from his high vantage point, Naruto couldn't help but be worried. There were trees all around for as far as he could see, bar some gaps that he took to be clearings, and there was no sign of the gigantic form of the recently revived Ten-Tails or anything else even remotely familiar. Even the few birds in the sky above him were different from anything he had seen. At first glance, they could be mistaken as very large ravens but the top halves of their heads were covered by a white mask or helmet and, when one got a bit closer, the claws on their wings were easily visible. Naruto briefly thought that they could be summons but there were more than would typically be summoned at any one time, especially given their size, and they didn't exhibit anywhere near the level of intelligence that all of the other summons he'd met had possessed. So that meant that they were either abnormally stupid summons or really weird wildlife, and neither of those possibilities were particularly reassuring, particularly when one somehow fired a few of its feathers into another area of the forest at high speeds.

After reluctantly accepting that he would be stuck in the forest for at least a little while, Naruto made his way back to solid ground to see if he could find anywhere safe to sleep. He was almost within jumping distance of the grass-filled earth below when he quickly shot up again after seeing a strange pair of large black bears sniffing the area he had woken up in and grunting to each other. The two animals then split up as their circled the area, presumably trying to track the lost shinobi down, and it didn't take long for one of them to pick up his scent on the tree that he was currently hiding in.

A quick growl was all it took for both bears to charge the tree in an attempt to knock him out and, given that he couldn't use his chakra to cling to the branch, they might have succeeded had he not dug his nails into the bark. He quickly jumped out of the tree and into another, wanting to avoid a fight since he wasn't sure of his chances against the two unusual animals with his chakra out of whack. He was already several trees away before the bears even realised he'd moved so he had more than a decent head-start when they barrelled after him in pursuit. A few minutes later and he the blond shot out into a clearing, confident that the bears were too far behind to keep track of him.

Unfortunately for the former Jinchuriki, a loud howl alerted him to the fact that he was not alone in the clearing. Naruto glanced over his shoulder to see a group of four black werewolves feasting on the bodies of some unfortunate animals with a fifth staring at him.

"Oh, come on!" Naruto screamed in frustration as he was, once again, running for his life due to being chased by bone-masked black animals seemingly intent on eating him. He was careful to avoid going back in the direction that he had come from as he would rather not add the pair of bears to his current problem. It would seem, though, that the bears would have been preferable to the pack of wolves chasing him since the latter was actually more or less able to keep up with him as he leapt from branch to branch.

After a ten minute chase, it was becoming clear that he would not be able to lose his newest pursuers so he instead had to kill them, or at least incapacitate them long enough to run off. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem since he could distract them with shadow clones or destroy them with Rasengans. However, neither of those options seemed particularly feasible at the moment with his reserves were running rather low and his chakra control completely shot to hell, not to mention feeling noticeably different as well. He couldn't even fight them with kunai since that pouch had a large cut along the bottom and had long since emptied itself, leaving him with only the single knife that was attached to the mechanism on his right forearm. That left him with nothing but Taijutsu, which he was more than competent with, but he was apprehensive about using his fists on things with sharp claws and long fangs.

Resigning himself to what would most likely be a fairly painful experience, Naruto guided the beasts to a particularly dense area of trees in the hopes that it would somewhat hinder the group. Almost as though they could sense the change, the first two werewolves leapt forwards even faster than before, claws poised to slice their prey to pieces. Before they could strike, however, the blond ducked down under their blatantly obvious attacks and, channelling as little chakra as he could through his arm, punched the nearer of the two in the chest, pleasantly surprised by the sickening cracks of multiple ribs breaking.

A howl reminded the shinobi that he had more than two opponents as he jumped aside in time to avoid another wolf that had pounced at him. Again, he swung a chakra-enhanced fist at the creature only to open the hand out again just before impact without really noticing. What Naruto did notice was the spray of blood that erupted as his fingers somehow sliced through the wolf's torso, taking out a sizable chuck. He looked at his hand in an attempt to understand exactly how he had done that and was more than a little confused at the sight of the alien hand sticking out of his sleeve.

His fingers had been replaced with, or perhaps encased inside, ivory claws that bore more than a passing resemblance to those of his attackers except that they were segmented so that he could bend them like he could his fingers. The rest of his hand had not remained unchanged, however, as it was covered in a coarse layer of black fur, again similar to the wolves around him, which extended at least partway up his arm. The entire hand was also obscured slightly by the black fog that had covered his entire body earlier in the day. Reluctantly, the blond decided to postpone his questions about this change until after he had dealt with the entire pack that was looking to eat him. After a quick flex of his hand to ensure that his mobility was indeed unaffected, he quickly charged the first beast that he had injured in the hopes of killing whilst it was still weak.

The werewolf seemed to be having trouble breathing, presumably due to its broken ribs, and Naruto had no qualms about putting it out of its misery by almost slicing its head off, the thick spine being what prevented him from properly beheading it, whilst easily dodging its clumsy flails. Quickly leaping backwards to avoid another set of claws, he swung his own clawed hand in response and split open the arm of another wolf, eliciting a pained whine. Whilst it was distracted by the pain, he jumped over it and, digging his claws into its shoulder, managed to cut its undamaged arm clean off.

At this point, the young shinobi came to the conclusion that having a single clawed hand would only drag out the fight and so he channelled chakra through his other arm, his current theory being that the chakra flowing through the first was what triggered the change. His efforts were rewarded when the flesh quickly gave way to fur, claws and mist but he did notice that his reserves were now worryingly empty, meaning that he would have to finish off the predators as quickly as possible. With that in mind, he quickly charged at the one-armed wolf and carved out the majority of its chest, ignoring the fountain of blood that erupted from the wound and covered him though he did note that it seemed to evaporate quickly.

The final three beasts seemed to finally realise that their prey was proving to be more dangerous than they had originally anticipated and decided to be a bit more cautious with their assault. They all charged him together to stop him from picking them off one by one and their efforts were rewarded when one of them managed to rake its claws across its target's chest, leaving three long bloody gashes. Unfortunately, the blond had managed to do the same to another wolf, only those wound were much deeper and more numerous since he had used both hands. Just as the three leapt at him again, the injured one tripped on the ground and collapsed in an unmoving heap, its wound too serious for it to continue.

Now with only two combat-capable opponents, the heavily breathing young man seemed to have finally reached his limit as he stood leaning against a tree. Taking this as a good sign, the pair once again charged at him only for the exhausted shinobi to drop to the ground at the last minute so that they both sailed over him. One of the creatures landed several feet away and seemed somewhat disorientated by the unexpected landing, whilst the other painfully collided with the tree Naruto had been leaning against. As soon as it impacted, he leapt up and ripped its throat out before turning his attention onto the other one.

The final werewolf snarled and charged at him yet again. Too exhausted by not to dodge, Naruto had no choice but to take the hit head-on. He grabbed the madly snapping jaws with one hand before they could bite him and reached around with his other claws to get a good enough grip to break its neck, receiving several shallower cuts to both of his arms. A quiet whine drew Naruto's attention back towards the creature he had slashed in the chest and he saw that it was still clinging to life. He pushed the corpse off of him and slowly made his way over to it before putting it out of its misery by breaking its neck like the previous one.

After a quick check revealed that there were no more animals out for his blood, Naruto immediately cut the flow of chakra in both arms before he passed out from chakra exhaustion and watched as they slowly but surely reverted back to their human appearance, the fog dissipating as they did. He soon decided that staying where he was would be bad as the smell of the deceased beasts would likely lure in other animals and he wasn't in any condition to fight again. His chakra reserves were emptier than they had been in a very long time and he was also badly injured.

He quickly left the area and tried to find either some kind of shelter or preferably a way out of the forest. After walking for almost an hour to put as much distance between him and his recent kills as possible, he eventually stumbled upon a cliff with a waterfall flowing over it and into a small stream. He quickly hobbled over to the water, the branch he had been forced to pick up over thirty minutes ago to use as an impromptu crutch thumping on the ground with each step.

It was only when he collapsed onto his knees to drink that Naruto noticed something odd about the rock surrounding the waterfall. After drinking his fill, he made his way over to the cliff face and took note of the large crack that was present behind the falling water. The crack was only slightly shorter than he was and looked barely large enough for him to fit through but, from what little he could tell, it led to a small cave inside the rock that looked just about big enough for him to stay in. It would probably be uncomfortable in the long-term but it was much better than staying out in the open for the wolves and whatever other creatures lived in the forest to find him.

* * *

An unhappy grumble resounded throughout the cave as the sun shone in through the entrance, shining on the face of its sole occupant. A little over nine months had passed since Naruto had been sent away from his home by Tobi and had found himself in an insanely large forest full of strange creatures that seemed determined to kill him whenever they saw him, regardless of his actions towards them. He'd tried to get out of the forest in an attempt to find some kind of civilisation but, when he had finally found the edge after over two days travel, there was nothing but grass, a river and a few mountains in the distance. He had wandered around for a few days but, after not seeing any sign of any people, had decided to return to his cave in the forest. Even though the wildlife tried to kill him at every opportunity, there was enough of it for him to comfortably survive; something that wasn't true beyond the forest's edge.

Every now and then, the blond had heard loud noises overhead and had at one point seen a large metal box flying through the air. This had changed his belief that there were no people in whatever world he was now in; he was now certain there were people around, but they were simply too far away for him to get to by himself.

Five minutes later, the grumbling blond finally decided to get up, if for no other reason than to avoid the bright sunlight that was currently blinding him. That was one of the few downsides to living in his hidden cave. The entrance faced east and as such faced the rising sun every morning. Whilst this wouldn't normally be much of a problem, the waterfall that flowed over the entrance acted similar to a lens and intensified the light considerably. He had, at one point, covered the entrance with the pelt of one of the monstrous bears that he had killed but that had completely blocked out the light and made getting up in the morning quite difficult since he couldn't see anything whilst it was hanging up.

Naruto eventually emerged from the cave and, after checking the area for animals, walked straight through the waterfall that kept his home hidden. Somewhat more refreshed from the water, he quickly shook his head to get rid of whatever he could before bringing his hands up to dry his ears.

This was something that had changed over the last nine months since his arrival. Unlike before, his ears were now much longer, extending backwards past the back of his head, and were covered in a thin layer of crimson fur. The ears had steadily grown out to their current size over his first few days in the forest. The second change was the similarly-coloured long fox tail that emerged from the base of his spine. Naruto wasn't sure exactly why the extra features had appeared but, since they were carbon copies of the Nine-Tails ears and tail, he attributed it to something going wrong with the extraction or possibly something similar to the transformation his hands had undergone whilst fighting the wolves.

Naruto had discovered after much experimentation that whenever he channelled chakra, that area of his body would start to radiate a thin black mist that increased in thickness in proportion to the amount of chakra he channelled. Again, he wasn't sure what had caused this strange phenomenon but, since it was similar to how he would be covered in red chakra whenever he used the Nine-Tails' power, he considered it to be another side effect of the extraction. Even now, his body was covered in a very thin, almost imperceptible, layer of fog since his body continuously channelled a very small amount of chakra through itself even if he was unconscious. This small flow had the benefit of speeding up his healing but he wasn't sure if it was on the same level as when he used the Fox's power in the past to regenerate a punctured lung during his fight with Sasuke and wasn't in any particular hurry to test it out.

He had also discovered that if he sent enough chakra through a particular area of his body that that area would undergo a strange transformation. His skin would sprout coarse black fur and his fingers and toes would develop tough claws. In addition to this, whatever area was affected always seemed to be stronger than his untransformed parts. Naruto was aware that he could forcefully prevent the transformation from occurring, even if he was using more than enough chakra, but that was unpleasant so he generally didn't. He hadn't yet tried to see if he could transform his entire body; so far he had only tried it with his limbs for combat purposes.

Once he was happy that he was at least dry enough to avoid dripping everywhere he went, Naruto jumped up into the nearest tree and started looking for something to eat. It didn't matter that he wasn't completely dry since the sun would soon take care of that, especially since the only clothing he had on was the strip of dark orange cloth tied around his waist which was all that remained of his previous outfit. He briefly laughed at the thought that anyone looking at him would be incredibly confused at the sheer weirdness he embodied. He was a teenager with abnormally long elongated fox ears and matching tail jumping from tree branch to tree branch with ease; he was almost naked and his chest was heavily scarred with both the fist-sized mark caused by a Chidori and the three long scars that he had received in his first fight in the forest.

After ten minutes, the blond eventually came across the body of a large armoured black pig with large tusks. As usual, there was no blood at all since the blood of all of the strange bone-armoured black animals in the forest started evaporating within seconds of being spilt. In the past months, he had come across several different varieties, including the bears and werewolves he had encountered on the first day as well as humungous birds, double-ended snakes and giant scorpions. The pig in front of him was one of the harder ones to kill, if only because the only real weak spot he had found was their stomachs and they had the intriguing ability to curl up like hedgehogs and roll around at high speeds, thus protecting their vulnerability. He wasn't sure what had killed this one but whatever it was had managed to slice open its belly, the wound presumably being what killed it, and had also eaten a fair amount of it.

Naruto made a mental note of where the pig's body was in relation to his cave so that he could collect it later for lunch if it was still around by that point. He didn't want to drag it to his cave now because the smell would attract predators and he'd rather not deal with that so close to his home. Just past the pig was what he was actually looking for, a banana tree. He picked several bunches of the fruit, wrapping them up in tree's large leaves, to take back to the cave for storage since his previous stockpile had run out the previous evening.

Just as he entered the small clearing that contained his home, he heard the semi-familiar sound of the strange metal contraption flying overhead although this time it was far louder than he had ever heard before, almost deafening him courtesy of his somewhat enhanced hearing. Naruto was just about to retreat into his cave, which would hopefully block out a good deal of the noise, when the metal flying machine that was making the racket appeared above the top of the cliff. The intense winds that accompanied its movements caused several of the banana packages to fly out of his grip as the contraption soared overhead, barely clearing the foliage, before dropping down behind the trees not too far away where Naruto knew there was a large clearing that should be big enough to contain it.

Immediately realising that the machine had just landed in the forest, Naruto felt himself grin as he understood that this may well be his only chance of meeting actual people as well as a possible way to get out of the forest. He quickly placed the wrapped up bananas inside his cave, including the ones that were blown out of his arms, in case he would not be able to leave the forest with the new visitors; no sense putting all of his hopes on it.

The blond also grabbed a long wooden pole that almost reached his shoulder. The top of the stick had several long bone spikes tied horizontally, resembling a very crude homemade scythe, whilst the base had another bone spike attached, making that end look vaguely like a spear. The weapon had been made after a few close calls too many whilst hunting. All of the spikes had been scavenged from the creatures in the forest and sharpened for maximum damage potential. He may be physically stronger than most people, especially if he transformed, but it never hurt to carry a weapon; he could end up needing it if the arrivals proved hostile.

After grabbing his rather primitive-looking weapon, the animalistic-looking blond leapt into the trees and quickly made his way over to where he believed the strange craft had landed. He made the journey in good time, only taking five minutes at full speed. As he landed on a branch overlooking the clearing, he observed the people that he could see. They all wore the same clothes, likely a uniform, which consisted of black trousers, boots and long-sleeved shirts. They had white armour-like vests on top and wore metal bracers over their forearms. However, the most distinctive feature was the mask that they all wore. It covered the top half of their faces, with a black hood hiding their hair, and had two pairs of slits over the eyes to allow them to see. Finally, he saw a logo on the back of one of them that consisted of a red animal head in front of three slash marks. Each of them was also carrying some kind of weapon, either a sword or a strange small metal thing that vaguely resembled a pipe with a handle attached.

All of the identically dressed individuals, whom Naruto though may have been soldiers given their uniforms and weapons, were keeping watch on the surroundings, possibly for the various man-eating creatures that lived in the forest.

The blond was about to jump down and make his presence known when a new figure stepped out of the vehicle. This one was a man with short rust-coloured hair and was dressed similarly to the others bar the mask, hood and armoured vest, instead wearing a long dark brown leather duster, and didn't seem to be armed. What Naruto found most interesting about him was the pair of large ram-like horns that protruded from his forehead and curled around on either side. The sight made the shinobi wonder if all of the people hear had some kind of animal-like appendage; if they did then his new features wouldn't make him stick out at all.

Unfortunately for him, any further thoughts of being able to fit in with the strange animal people were completely forgotten when the horned man made a single gesture towards the still open aircraft and another soldier came out, one hand holding the same strange weapon as some of the others and the other holding a long rope that was being used to pull a teenage girl, probably around the same age as Naruto, outside. The rope was fastened around the girl's neck in a make-shift collar and her hands were tied behind her back.

The girl herself was wearing a faded blue sleeping gown with short sleeves and a small snowflake on the side of the chest. She had long white hair that reached past her waist and pale skin. She seemed terrified of her current situation and that fear only became even more pronounced when the horned man said something to her that got everyone else laughing. At that Naruto clutched his spear/scythe hybrid even tighter, especially when he noticed the resigned acceptance that was mixed in with the fear. The fact that the girl had apparently accepted what was happening to her, albeit very reluctantly, made Naruto forget any possible thoughts about approaching the group in a friendly manner.

There was a girl in trouble and he'd be damned if he let anything bad happen to her.

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**A/N: And that's a wrap. I was considering carrying on but this seemed like a good place to stop and I wanted to get this up before Volume 2 comes out which should be sometime later today. Finally, I have no idea how regular updates are going to be for this, since my free time is somewhat limited by job hunting.**


	2. Black Beast Vs White Fang

******Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or RWBY. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto and RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth.**

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**Chapter 2: Black Beast Vs White Fang**

Ares Deimon was not having a good day. It had started well enough as his group of White Fang grunts had succeeded in kidnapping the Schnee heiress from her hotel room in the middle of the night where she was staying whilst her father ironed out a new business deal for the large Dust company. The ram Faunus wasn't really sure why she was there and he honestly didn't care. The information he'd managed to acquire was correct and with it he'd pulled off an almost perfect abduction. Sure, a few of his men had been caught during the incident but they didn't know anything important and so he wasn't particularly bothered about what happened to them.

Unfortunately, things had only gotten worse from there. First, there had been trouble getting to their escape point as backup for the guards had arrived quicker than he had anticipated. The horned man had been able to get past them but doing so had cost him another three men and had also provided enough time for a Bullhead to be deployed in pursuit of his own. Whilst they had somehow managed to lose their pursuers, at least for a short while, their evasive flying had cost even more time and one of their engines had been damaged enough for a small trail of smoke to pour out.

It was then that a decision was made to hide out in the forest that lay just beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Vale. No-one would think to look for them there and it would give them time to repair the engine. The forest was said to be the home of countless Grimm but as long as they didn't stray too deep then they should be fine. With this in mind, they'd landed in a small clearing and the redhead had immediately sent his remaining men out to deal with any Grimm that got too close, ignoring the strange feeling of unease that had appeared the moment he'd stepped outside. He'd even had a little fun with the girl after he had her brought outside by explaining exactly where they were and informing her that he had absolutely no qualms about leaving her there if her family didn't play ball.

Whilst the logic behind the decision to hide in the forest had seemed sound at the time, it hadn't taken into consideration the weird hazy Grimm, for he couldn't think of anything else that it could possibly be, that had leapt from the tree line and was currently dealing with his now-terrified men in a frighteningly efficient manner whilst easily avoiding their swords and guns, though the latter had apparently taken it by surprise at first.

* * *

Meanwhile, Naruto was starting to get a little bored. After seeing the soldiers' swords, he'd abandoned his spear since it would be of little help against skilled swordsmen and, in his experience, people only carry around weapons that they are particularly skilled at using. Sure, he had the little trick he'd accidentally discovered a month or so after his arrival but it wouldn't make up for his lack of actual skill with the weapon. The fox-like teen had, however, untied the bone spikes and slid them into the cloth around his waist in case he needed projectiles.

After he'd done that, he'd engulfed himself with the thick fog of his chakra since he'd learnt long ago that intimidating your opponent can prove beneficial in combat. He'd also done that because fighting a group of people wearing nothing but a piece of cloth around his waist didn't sound particularly fun. Then there was the potential embarrassment that would follow if said piece of cloth came loose whilst he was fighting. It had been bad enough the first time that had happened and he had only been dealing with one of those large black boars that time.

Once he was satisfied that he was properly obscured, Naruto had leapt out of the tree he was hiding in, aiming to take out the nearest opponent before he knew what was going on. He'd landed on his target, the force of the impact sending the hooded fighter to the ground hard enough to knock him unconscious, and then proceeded to move around the various soldiers, knocking them out whilst avoiding their weapons.

Much to his disappointment, it seemed that none of the identically-dressed individuals were particularly skilled at fighting. Admittedly, they were doing better than most civilians back home did but they simply didn't compare to the other shinobi he'd faced in the past. None of the swordsmen appeared to be even remotely as skilled as Zabuza or Raiga. Even TenTen, who wasn't even really considered a swordswoman due to her jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none attitude regarding weaponry, was far more impressive to go up against. The strange weapons that some of the soldiers were carrying had caught him off guard, since he wasn't expecting them to launch pieces of metal at speeds far exceeding a thrown kunai, and the first one had grazed his side just above his waist, though the wound healed fairly quickly given how much chakra was currently flowing through him. Fortunately, the ones using them didn't seem to be particularly good at aiming at fast targets and their reaction times, whilst somewhat decent, simply didn't compare to a trained shinobi.

If the blond had to compare them to anything, he'd say that the group he was dealing with were similar to the bandit groups that popped up in various places in the Elemental Nations. Whilst they were more skilled than civilians, the only real way they'd win a fight against a shinobi would be through sheer overwhelming numbers and there simply weren't enough of them here to be a threat.

After reaching that conclusion, Naruto had wished that he had kept his spear. If he had limited himself to fighting purely with the makeshift weapon then it may have been more of a challenge. As it was, he easily moved from soldier to soldier, knocking them all out with just one or two strikes, though a couple had fallen to their own comrades' bad aim with their unfamiliar projectile weapons.

* * *

As he nervously watched the strange Grimm pick apart his group with such ease, Ares quickly signalled for his remaining grunts to retreat back into the Bullhead with the intention of shutting the beast out. However, it seemed that the misty creature understood his intention as, with a single swing of a limb, a white blur shot forwards and impaled the chest of the one holding the heiress' rope, with another taking out the person next to him. A closer look revealed that the fatal projectiles were bone spikes and that just raised more questions for the confused ram Faunus.

Nobody had ever heard of a Grimm showing such intelligence in combat, it was more reminiscent of a trained martial artist than a wild beast, and no known species of the creatures of destruction was capable of launching bone spikes as a weapon; the closest was the ability of the Nevermore to shoot feathers from its wings.

Seeing as retreat was no longer an option and the beast was shooting anyone that got close to the aircraft's ramp, Ares reached into his coat and pulled out his own weapon, confident that he could kill the damn thing since he was far superior in combat to the grunts. Once the device was out, a quick twitch of the wrist caused it to shift into its initial combat form. Soon, the redhead was holding a two-handed battle axe with a noticeably larger than average head and two similarly sized blades. The shaft of the axe was a sleek silver, as were the pair of wicked-looking blades, whilst the handle and the head were a dark crimson. There was a small grille on either side of the axe head, through which came small puffs of smoke as the weapon transformed, and a small circular opening was present between the blades opposite the shaft.

Now that he was properly armed, the ram Faunus charged at the Grimm, determined to kill it before it could take out any of his few remaining men. The beast seemed to recognise him as a credible threat as it kicked the nearest grunt away before turning to face the running redhead. Raising his axe high, Ares attempted to cleave the creature in front of him in half but it leapt back just in time to avoid the strike. He was about to try again when another bone spike shot through the air towards him, forcing him to deflect it.

The redhead shot forwards again, noting with great confusion that the Grimm had picked up one of his men's swords from where it lay on the ground. The creatures of darkness never used human weapons; they simply lacked the intelligence to utilise them effectively. A loud clang echoed through the clearing as axe met sword, quickly followed by a crack as the stronger axe sliced clean through the weaker blade. The beast used the force of the impact to slide backwards just enough to avoid any significant injury, only receiving a small cut from the descending red and silver weapon, before it rolled to the side and grabbed another sword.

Expecting the same thing to happen again, the White Fang member was more than a little surprised when, instead of shattering like the first had, the sword managed to survive his strike, regardless of how impossible such as thing should be. The blades of his axe were far sharper than the mass produced weapons that the grunts carried and were made of much sturdier metals. The axe head was also significantly heavier than one would believe upon seeing the weapon, something that made his swings even more dangerous. The only thing that was different than the creature's previous failed attempt at blocking was that the mist that covered its body had spread down the length of the cheap sabre.

Despite himself, Ares couldn't help but grin at the challenge his current opponent was proving to be. The fog-covered beast was agile enough to evade most of his strikes and it was somehow capable of using a blade to block those that it could not dodge, albeit rather clumsily. As their weapons locked, he first thought that he would be capable of simply outmuscling his foe but, after a few seconds, the Grimm proved that it could even match his fierce strength. A quick flick of the wrist nudged the hazy blade out of the way enough for the ram Faunus to knock it aside but the obscure being slid sideways before he could hit it.

Another small movement had the axe's shaft extending several feet until the whole weapon was almost as long as the redhead was tall, with a small trigger popping out on the crimson handle that was currently two feet up from the base of the pole, and a thin nozzle slid out of the circular opening at the other end, both actions being accompanied by puffs of smoke from the grilles on the head. This was the other form of his weapon. The longer staff allowed his blows to hit with more momentum and also served to increase his reach. However, this was not the primary purpose of this form, as was demonstrated when a burst of intense fire shot out of the nozzle at the surprised Grimm in response to a quick press of the trigger.

Now fully under the influence of his characteristic battle frenzy, Ares cackled madly as he repeatedly swung his poleaxe, each swipe being punctuated by another stream of flames and typically gauging the earth as well. Each strike was closer to hitting the Grimm than the previous and the steadily building blaze was proving difficult for it to deal with. His laughter reached its peak at a particularly potent stream of fire hit the hazy creature, engulfing it in an inferno. The guffawing, however, died in Ares' throat when the flames died down to reveal, not the cooked corpse of the Grimm that he was expecting, but a badly charred stump of wood.

* * *

Finally, Naruto was enjoying himself. The horned redhead was proving to be a much better opponent for him that the others. The skill he was showing with his weapon was impressive, especially when it had started spewing flames, and the strength behind each blow was nothing to scoff at either. The blond had been a little surprised when the sword in his hand had broken so easily after being hit by the axe but he figured that the simple blades were not made all that well. They seemed to favour quantity rather than quality. With than in mind, he had had to augment the next sword with his chakra, strengthening it considerably.

This was what he had accidentally discovered a little over a month after his arrival. If he sent a decent amount of his chakra into an object then that object would become much stronger, greatly surpassing what could be done with simple chakra enhancement back home, and take on the distinctive hazy appearance that he himself possessed. Unfortunately, this newfound ability was not without its downsides as, when he cut the chakra flow, the object would be much more brittle than it was before he laid hands on it, usually breaking apart at the slightest touch. All in all, it temporarily toughened the object in exchange for weakening it in the long run. It was also the reason that the spear he had arrived with was in fact the twenty-ninth one he had made during his time in the forest, needless to say that he had gotten quite good at fashioning homemade weapons from branches and bone spikes.

Unfortunately, even with an augmented weapon, he simply didn't have the skill to utilise it effectively as a sword and, as such, was reduced to using it as a club to deflect each incoming blow, though he had had to transform his arm to provide enough raw strength. The axe's transformation had been a surprise to him, particularly when it revealed itself as a flamethrower, and the redhead had started overpowering him with the heavier swings.

Soon enough, Naruto had been hit by a jet of flame but he avoided it by replacing himself with a nearby fallen branch, thankful that he could still use that technique without much trouble. Since he had appeared in the forest, his chakra seemed to be somewhat reluctant to be utilised outside of his own body. He could still use all of his old abilities like Shadow Clones and the Rasengan but it took more concentration than it used to and he was still practicing with them to get back to the point of being able to use them on the fly in combat again.

The vulpine blond couldn't help but chuckle quietly to himself when he saw the look of complete bewilderment on his opponent's face. It would seem that the people of this world were not capable of anything resembling the Substitution Technique that every ninja was taught before being allowed to graduate. The former Jinchuriki pulled out one of the last two bone spikes that remained tucked inside his clothing and, after enhancing it with his chakra, threw it straight at the horned redhead's chest. The impromptu projectile was easily parried and he was disgruntled when he noticed that, even strengthened as it was, the bone proved incapable of denting the polearm, much less damaging it. He had to quickly dive out of the way when a jet of flame was shot out at him, presumably due to the redhead having tracked the path of the bone back to him.

With ranged attacks being completely ineffective, Naruto had no choice but to get in close again if he wanted to help the white-haired girl who was currently watching the fight even after having retreated back up the ramp to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. He dashed out of the undergrowth, grabbing and strengthening another sword with his free hand as he did so, and charged the horned axe wielder. Transforming his legs to bolster his strength, the blond leapt over the incoming fireball and swung both his blades down towards his target, the force of his attack amplified by the added momentum of his jump.

The redhead barely managed to get his staff up in time to intercept the potentially fatal blows. All of a sudden, the air around the ram-like man heated up considerably and the outline of his body started to blur, similar to a desert mirage. The sudden addition of such hot air caused the haze surrounding Naruto's body to flicker slightly but it did not hinder him in any way. The blades of the horned man's axe started to glow, a sign they there were being heated as well, but they retained their shape and didn't look like they were anywhere close to melting. With a single almighty shove, he threw Naruto off of him, sending him flying across the clearing as the claws on his feet gouged the earth where he landed.

In response to his opponent's apparent heat-related ability, the blond sent even more chakra through his body and into the swords in his hands. This caused the fog around both him and the weapons to become even thicker and the blades themselves to start creaking as they were enhanced far more than they could tolerate. Naruto barely paid any attention to the slight pain that he felt in his elbows, knees and shoulders as well as along his spine. His now faintly-glowing red eyes locked onto the axe wielder and he charged again, now even faster than before and cracking the ground with each step, intent on dealing with him.

Again and again, fog-coated swords and searing axe met in a furious clash of sparks, each being deflected by another with varying levels of finesse, until one of the swords happened to get caught between the axe shaft and one of its blades. A flick of the blond's wrist sent the red and silver weapon flying out of its owner's hands as the sword that caused the disarming shattered from the force. Now unarmed, the redhead simply couldn't cope with Naruto's assault and, despite his best efforts, was soon knocked out by a rather powerful blow to the head. A quick glance around revealed that the various soldiers were either still unconscious or were huddled against the trees after having retreated to the edges of the clearing in an attempt to stay as far away from him as possible without actually going into the forest proper.

Seeing that there were no more threats, Naruto tossed his remaining sword onto the ground, the impact causing it to break into several pieces, and immediately cut the flow of chakra through his body, knowing that it would take a while for his transformation to reverse itself given how long it had been present. He then looked over at the girl in the aircraft, idly noting that she had freed her hands and removed her collar at some point, but flinched when he saw the intense terror that she was looking at him with.

The blond supposed that it was only natural. She had just seen him fight against a large group of soldiers and win, even killing a few of them that got too close to her. Considering that she couldn't actually see him clearly due to the fog, she probably thought he was some kind of monster similar to the beasts that inhabited the forest. Deciding to set her straight, as well as try and calm her down, he opened his mouth to shout something at her, since he didn't want to get too close whilst she was still afraid of him, but snapped it shut again when, instead of words, a deep growl came out from his throat.

Sighing to himself in annoyance when he saw that she was now even more afraid of him than before if her hiding behind the side of the aircraft's opening was any indication, Naruto plopped down onto the ground and ran the back of his hand over his neck to try and figure out why he couldn't speak. He soon had his answer when, instead of soft human skin, he found a thin layer of coarse fur. It would seem that he had unknowingly transformed more than just his limbs during the fight.

* * *

Shuffling behind the side of the Bullhead's open entrance after hearing the vicious snarling, Weiss Schnee regarded the strange Grimm with more than a little fear and confusion. She had seen it take out a good majority of the White Fang goons and it had had a fight with their leader that would have been considered impressive if it had been a human let alone a mindless beast.

So, why was it just waiting there? Why hadn't it come in to kill her yet? It was a well known fact that the creatures of destruction were hell-bent on destroying humans and their creations yet this one was just sat on the ground.

The young heiress was also confused as to what type of Grimm it was. Even though the various different species was a topic that was not covered in any significant detail until Beacon Academy, she still knew enough to confidently say that the beast outside was not one that had been documented before. No Grimm was known to be able to fire bone spikes or make use of human weaponry, yet this one did both. There was also the fact that it was alone. From what she knew, most Grimm tended to stay together in groups to hunt since there was strength in numbers.

Suddenly, without any warning, the creature swung its arm in her direction and something shot by her, missing her head by mere inches. Though she would never admit it later, Weiss screamed at the sudden attack that almost killed her. She immediately ducked inside the Bullhead, reluctantly taking her eyes off the beast, so that it didn't have the opportunity for a second attempt, only to freeze when she saw exactly where the spike had impacted. Lying on the ground just behind where she had previously been standing was another uniformed White Fang Faunus with a gun in his hand and the spike buried deep in his chest.

This sight only served to raise more questions for the already tired and confused girl. The White Fang goon was probably going to take advantage of her back being turned to attack her, thus it followed that the spike was fired to stop him from doing so. But that would mean that the Grimm was protecting her and they didn't protect anything, not even each other. Thinking back on the events since the creature appeared, the white-haired girl realised that at no point had it ever actually attacked her. In fact, it had killed the guy holding her leash as well as the one that tried to grab it afterwards. Even now, when she was completely defenceless, it simply sat outside keeping an eye on everything.

It was at this point that Weiss, determined to understand the mystery in front of her, decided to do something potentially quite dangerous and approach the Grimm currently sat outside. It was incredibly risky and could easily end with it killing her since there was every chance that the conclusions she had reached about it were wrong but, if things did go wrong, she could always run back to the relative safety of the Bullhead. She could move quite quickly if she wanted to, especially when she used her glyphs, and whilst she was fully rested the Grimm had just gone through a rather longwinded fight and was bound to be at least somewhat exhausted.

Having decided on her course of action, Weiss peered outside to confirm that the Grimm was indeed still there and, picking up the gun near her feet as a precautionary measure, walked partway down the ramp. Now standing a bit closer, she looked the beast over to try and get a better understanding of it. Though its body was hidden by that black cloud which seemed smaller than it had been, the heiress was able to make out a vaguely humanoid shape inside it that was watching something in the sky with faint red eyes. She cocked the gun in her hands, mainly as a way of reassuring herself that she could fight back if needed, before clearing her throat to get its attention.

"Can you understand me?" she called out, feeling more than a little stupid. Whoever heard of a Grimm actually understanding human language? Admittedly, no-one was generally stupid enough to try and talk to one as it would immediately try and kill them. She was very surprised, therefore, when the hazy monster seemed to nod in response to her question.

Unfortunately, before she could go any further with her very weird conversation, she was deafened by the sound of an approaching Bullhead that she had previously not noticed due to her strange thoughts concerning the creature in front of her. Said Bullhead then opened fire on her unlikely saviour, causing it to flee into the undergrowth to avoid being hit. Now feeling frustrated that she was being denied her answers, Weiss took a proper look at the incoming aircraft and saw, much to her relief, that it carried the snowflake logo of the Schnee Dust Company, meaning that it was almost certainly there to rescue her. She stayed inside her current hiding place though, just in case the aircraft was something that had been stolen by the White Fang, since theft from her grandfather's company was by no means unheard of. The Bullhead struggled to fit into the clearing since there was barely enough room for two and the first had not been positioned with a second in mind.

As soon as the craft was firmly on the ground, the side door swung open to reveal the group of guards who were assigned to protect her back at the hotel. The crowd quickly spread out to ensure that nothing tried to attack, something that Weiss thought to be rather pointless since there had been more White Fang members and they had all been taken care of by a single, albeit possibly unique, Grimm. Once the perimeter had been established, another figure came out of the door, one that Weiss immediately recognised and ran over to.

"Father!" the sixteen-year-old cried as she tackled the man. He had the same white hair as his daughter, though it was kept far shorter, and his skin was not quite as pale. He was currently wearing a smart dark grey suit and it seemed that he hadn't quite decided whether to be pleased that his daughter had been found and was safe or angry that the White Fang had kidnapped her in the first place. Deciding to be angry later, he gave his daughter a quick onceover to check for injuries. Aside from some minor rope burn on her wrists and around her neck and slightly bruised feet, she seemed fine though he made a note to have her checked out as soon as they returned to the city. A single hand gesture had the guards return to the Bullhead as he led Weiss inside.

"What about the White Fang, sir?" one of the guards asked.

"Just leave them. They have a damaged engine so they won't be able to bother us again," the white-haired man replied, clearly not caring what happened to the group that kidnapped his daughter. A couple of the guards seemed hesitant about following that command, since it was essentially leaving the Faunus to die, but they soon boarded.

Once everyone was inside, the aircraft rose up into the sky and flew off back to the city whilst the teenager informed her father of the events during and after her capture. The Grimm she spoke of was more than a little confusing but ultimately not important since it would probably never be seen again. Unknown to all onboard, a figure clung to the outside of the large flying machine, perched on top of a wing as its long coat fluttered in the wind.

* * *

Naruto decided quite quickly that he did not like air travel. The blond was currently sat on top of the vehicle that had arrived to rescue the white-haired girl and it was taking almost all of his concentration to stop himself from vomiting. What little attention he could spare was being used to stick himself to the metal underneath with chakra so that he was not blown off. Soon after takeoff, he had made the mistake of looking over the side to get a better idea of the area but the view had very nearly caused him to empty his stomach.

As the winds started to get colder, the foxy teen pulled the slightly-too-big coat he was wearing tighter around his body. Normally, he wouldn't have taken the horned redhead's coat but he doubted he would get a good reception in civilisation with nothing more than a scrap of orange cloth around his waist, especially since said scrap of cloth had been damaged even more than it already was during his fight and was now barely large enough to actually conceal anything.

In an attempt to distract himself from the altitude that he was currently travelling at, Naruto instead decided to focus on what little he had managed to glean about the world he was now in. Clearly, there were those here who possessed animal attributes, the guy with the ram horns being a good example, though he was unsure whether these people were a minority or the norm. This meant that there was at least one group of individuals that he could fit in with considering his relatively new additions. Then there was the white-haired girl and the people who had come to save her. None of them seemed to possess animal features which suggested that there were some normal humans here, but they didn't seem to get along with the others. This was understandable considering that they had apparently abducted her but he had overheard the new group talking and had picked out a few words that he was sure were derogatory, the most prominent being the term 'faunus' that seemed to apply to all those with animal features. If this sort of attitude was normal then it seemed that, yet again, the blond would be treated as something less than human due to things outside his control. First, it had been because he was a Jinchuriki and now because he had developed animalistic features, though at least there would hopefully be some people that would accept him this time.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to the nauseous shinobi, the barren landscape gave way to large buildings as the craft entered a coastal village that was similar in size to Konoha if not bigger. Despite wanting to have a proper look at the structures, Naruto stopped himself as he knew it would be the final straw for his poor stomach. Unfortunately for him, the flying machine showed no signs of stopping in the settlement as it carried on flying past. It did start to slow down, however, as it approached a large castle-like mansion overlooking a small cliff that was separated from the town by a decently-sized forest, much smaller than the one he lived in. As the craft gently lowered itself onto a marked area of concrete that was probably specifically for landing and taking off, the former Jinchuriki stood up and stretched to get the feeling back in his body after travelling for several hours.

There were a few people waiting on the landing space and, as soon as the vehicle had stopped moving and powered down, a lady in a white lab coat walked straight to the opening door. The girl he had encountered in the forest was quickly ushered to the presumed doctor by her father, despite her protests that she was fine, and caught sight of the blond standing on the roof as the sun happened to be behind him, silhouetting him and making his long ears stand out more than they already did.

"Faunus!" the girl cried out, pointing at Naruto. This action immediately caused the guards that had disembarked to raise their strange projectile-firing weapons and point them at the stiff teen. A quick command from the girl's father had the group open fire without even bothering to try and talk to him and Naruto reflexively flattened himself against the metal underfoot to avoid the approaching storm of potential death.

The vulpine young man soon came to the conclusion that these people were much more skilled with their weapons that the other lot in the forest had been, they fired a lot more frequently as well, and quickly decided that he would be better off running away since it did not seem that they were willing to talk things over. The incoming fire soon died down, though he wasn't sure if it was due to them running out of ammunition or they were waiting for him to pop up again, and he leapt to the ground quicker than most could follow, heading straight for the cliff.

"You people really need to learn how to express gratitude properly. Still, thanks for the lift." His somewhat sarcastic parting shot delivered, the Genin transformed his arms in preparation, not noticing the girl's shocked expression as she saw the accompanying mist nor the faint tinge or red that appeared on her cheeks when she caught sight of his exposed body, and flipped off the cliff, plummeting towards the waters below. As soon as he was out of sight, he rammed his claws into the cliff face, dislodging several pieces of rock in the process, and used the resistance to slow his descent. Once he had slowed down enough, Naruto simply planted his feet on the vertical surface and stuck himself to it with chakra. With that done, the blond glanced up to see if anyone had seen him but noticed that the very top of the cliff stuck out a little further than the rest and he was hidden from view by the outcrop. Seeing this, he gouged out a few large pieces of rock and let them fall into the waters below; the splashes would make anyone looking think he had fallen all of the way and thus he would be free to escape.

* * *

Just before he entered the large village he had seen from above, Naruto placed his hands together in a ram sign and focused his chakra. A small black cloud then coalesced around his body before fading away again to reveal that the blond had used the Transformation Technique to form a simple pair of black trousers and a black undershirt to avoid any potential questions about wandering around whilst practically naked.

With that done, the teen reluctantly set off in search of a library or something similar so that he could learn more about the world he was now in. Even though it was something he deemed necessary, the thought of sitting down for any length of time to read books was still unpleasant. Though if it got too boring, he could always create a few clones to make the process go quicker as long as he was discrete about it. He wasn't sure if clones were something that the people here could do and, if they weren't, he really did not want to draw attention to himself.

Eventually, Naruto managed to find out where the library was, though he had to ask several people for directions since most dismissed him as soon as they saw his ears with varying levels of politeness ranging from a simple but still somewhat rude dismissal to a woman hitting him with her bag for 'bothering' her. The only person who had given him the time of day had been a rather polite, and somewhat uncomfortable-looking, man with very prominent sideburns who apparently owned a bookstore a few roads over. The man, Tukson, had even given him the address of his shop in case he couldn't find what he was looking for in the library.

On his way to the library, the blond came across a small rundown-looking bar. He would have simply carried on past it but at that exact moment, the door burst open and a pair of men dressed head-to-toe in black with ski masks over their faces ran out. One of the two had a large sack slung over his shoulder whilst the other was drinking from a glass bottle. The duo were obviously robbers if the clichéd attire was any indication and this was confirmed moments later when a slightly rotund man wearing a ruffled suit appeared in the doorway, somewhat out of breath and repeatedly screaming 'Thieves' at the top of his voice. The commotion had attracted a bit of attention but the majority of people had ignored it after spotting the sandy canine ears hidden amidst the similarly coloured hair. Without even hesitating, Naruto picked up a couple of pebbles from the ground and threw them at the thieves. They both hit their respective targets, the back of the head, and the pathetic crooks collapsed to the ground, the bottle shattering when it landed.

"This is yours, right?" the blond asked the round man after he had retrieved the sack.

"Yes, yes it is. Thank you," he replied, still amazed at how easily the robbers had been stopped. He only snapped out of his stupor when he noticed that the foxy teen had turned to walk off. "Wait! Where are my manners? My name is Rinus Mujina and this is my bar," he gestured up to the sign hanging above the door that boasted the words 'Tanuki Tavern' in large letters. "Please, come in for a drink on the house. It's the least I can do for you."

Not wanting to be rude, the blond accepted the man's offer and entered the establishment, though he did keep his guard up just in case. After that, he wasn't entirely sure how it had occurred but, a few hours later, a somewhat tipsy Naruto stumbled into in the spare room of the apartment above the pub that Rinus had allowed him to use after finding out that he was currently homeless and collapsed onto the bed, his transformation finally failing as he did. The teen had also somehow ended up with a job keeping an eye on things in the tavern to prevent any future thefts, since apparently being a Faunus-run establishment made it a frequent target, whilst also helping out at the bar as and when needed.

* * *

**A/N: That's Chapter 2 done and more of Naruto's new abilities are revealed. This is probably going to end up being fairly long Author's Note so I'll apologise in advance but there are several things I want to say.**

**First, I want to thank everyone who's read/followed/favourite this story. When I uploaded it, I had no idea it would be anywhere near as popular as it is so thank you for your support.**

**Second, this chapter has the first real fight scene that I've ever written and I would really appreciate feedback on said scene (Did you like it or not? Did it flow properly? Was it too descriptive? Etc.) so that I can make better fight scenes in the future, both for this story and any others I may end up writing.**

**The third thing is about pairings. There have been a few people asking or suggesting particular pairings (mostly harems). At the moment, I'm leaning more towards a single pairing for this rather than a harem, though I'm still not decided on who. This is not because I have anything against harem stories, indeed many of my favourite stories on here are harems, but because I doubt that I'd be able to write a believable harem story since romance is most definitely not my strong suit. Of course, this may well change in the future.**

**The fourth, and final, thing is a bit of bad news. The next chapter for this could take a while as the current plan is for it to cover Naruto's arrival at Beacon and the initiation all the way up to team assignments. The reason for the delay is because there is certain information that has yet to be revealed in canon (but should be released sometime in Volume 2) that is needed before I write the initiation and I'd rather not make it up since the canon version will undoubtedly be much more impressive. I will, however, be using the time to iron out more details for the plot.**


	3. Arrival at Beacon

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or RWBY. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto and RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Arrival at Beacon**

Leaning against a wall at Vale's Airship dock, Naruto couldn't help but sigh in boredom as he adjusted the strap of the rucksack slung over his shoulder to stop it from sliding off. The teen was currently waiting for an Airship to arrive that would take him, as well as many of the other people who were present, to Beacon Academy. He had decided to apply to the prestigious institution two months ago on a whim, not really believing that he would be accepted, when Rinus had pointed out that he seemed to be growing a little bored with his security job at the pub. The tanuki Faunus had proved himself to be surprisingly perceptive when he suggested that the boredom may have been due to how Naruto was used to a much more active life since he knew a bit about the blond's time in the forest as well as a brief overview of his lifestyle before that, though he hadn't been told about the teen's status as a ninja from another world since it would just raise more questions. The sandy-haired man had then backed up his theory by commenting that he seemed to be at least slightly more interested whenever he had to deal with patrons who turned a bit violent when drunk or when thieves tried, unsuccessfully, to steal from the place. The latter was becoming more infrequent with each passing day as word spread about the pub's scarily effective security man and the reputation was doing wonders for the establishment as more Faunus were stopping by now that there was someone who would not hesitate to deal with any attempted discrimination that tended to happen to those who left drunk since they were considered easy targets.

Still, the vulpine blond was more than a little surprised when his application had actually been accepted since he had never attended a combat prep school like Signal and, as far as any records were concerned, had only come into existence six months ago when he arrived in the city. Sure, he had had to take an entrance exam to assess his combat capabilities but his shinobi training, coupled with his experience from the forest, meant that he had no problems with it and passed with flying colours, much to the surprise of the examiners. With his place at the school confirmed, the teen had quickly informed Rinus of his upcoming departure and thanked him for the kindness he had shown him, promising to stop by whenever he visited the city. The portly man had simply waved of his gratitude and in turn thanked him for everything he had done for his bar, which was quickly becoming the first choice for Faunus wanting a drink or two.

Other than his acceptance to Beacon Academy, not much of interest had happened over the last six months. The first thing he had done the day after his arrival and subsequent hiring was to buy some clothes with some money Rinus had lent him. Since then, the blond could usually be seen in his dark brown trousers, which were covered in numerous pockets and held up by a simple leather belt with a custom buckle made from the plate of his forehead protector that had previously been kept in his loincloth as it had a good deal of sentimental value to him; a grey sleeveless hoodie, the red Uzumaki Clan swirl emblazoned over his heart; a burnt orange t-shirt underneath and a pair of sandals on his feet that were almost identical to those worn in the Elemental Nations, though the upper sections were heavily elasticated so that they would not be destroyed if he happened to transform his feet. He also still wore the long coat that he had taken from the horned Faunus in the forest since he was becoming somewhat partial to it and the length had proved useful on more than one occasion. Currently, he had the hood up, concealing his long ears completely without any indication that they were there, to avoid the unnecessary attention that they would undoubtedly attract and his tail was hidden by his coat.

After he had done his clothes shopping, Naruto had spent a good deal of time learning as much about this new world, called Remnant, as he could. Though he was loath to spend any significant amount of time there, the library had proved invaluable in this endeavour as it provided a good deal of information concerning the history of the world, from a story of how the Grimm tried to destroy early humans to the more recent war between humans and Faunus. He had even learnt a little bit about the girl he had rescued back in the forest since the story had made headline news as well as the group that had kidnapped her. The only other thing of real importance, at least to him, was that he had found a rather decent noodle shop called A Simple Wok: Noodle House a few days after his arrival in the city whilst he was out exploring. He had found a few other similar places since, but that shop had by far the best noodles he had eaten since he was last at Ichiraku's just after he had received the Great Toad Sage's prophecy.

With another bored sigh, the waiting teen reached into the top pocket of his trousers and pulled out a simple-looking pocket watch on the end of a chain attached to a belt loop, checking the time on it before returning it to its home. It would seem that the Airship was running late as it was scheduled to arrive ten minutes ago, not that Naruto was too eager for it to turn up since he just knew that riding in it would make him sick. It did make sense that it could be late, though, since there were several other stops across the Kingdom of Vale to pick students up that it went to first. In fact, the dock in the City of Vale was the last collection point due to how close it was to Beacon Academy.

With nothing else to do until the Airship arrived, the blond looked over the various other students that were gathered. They all had some kind of weapon present on their person, though the diversity of them was frankly incredible as he saw all sorts ranging from spears and staffs to guns and things that he simply could not identify. Whilst he had to admit that some of the weaponry on display was certainly impressive, he could not help but think that, based on his admittedly limited knowledge, the people were somewhat dependent on them. The ram Faunus he had fought in the forest six months ago was a rather good example since, despite the remarkable skill with which he used his axe, he had been beaten quite quickly after he had been disarmed. Of course, there were bound to be those who were at least somewhat competent when fighting unarmed, especially if they had one of those semblance things he had read about, but he doubted most would be able to take out a decent-sized Grimm without their weapons unless they got lucky or came up with a plan in advance.

As he glanced over the various students, his eyes briefly rested on one, a brown-haired girl with long rabbit ears extending up above her head wearing a dark brown jacket and shorts with a black top underneath and matching leggings with small pieces of golden armour adorning her shoulders, wrists, feet and waist, and he absent-mindedly ran a hand over the black choker that was fastened around his neck and hidden from view under his hoodie. The seal-inscribed item was something that had quickly proved to be necessary given how much time he spent around Faunus and was also the reason that his body was completely haze-free at the moment. He was a little unhappy that it had to be something that resembled a collar but he wanted something that could be easily removed at a moment's notice and nothing else he tried seemed to work as effectively. The first thing he had tried was a wristband but it snapped as soon as he transformed his arm, which was also the reason he carried a pocket watch instead of wearing one on his wrist; a chain was simply not in contact with his skin enough to actually work and anything else that could have worked was not something that could be easily removed without taking off at least some clothing, thus making it somewhat impractical.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the faint sound of engines reached Naruto's ears and he looked up to see the distant dot that was the approaching Airship. A few minutes later and the other students began to hear the engines as they started to mutter excitedly amongst themselves. When the Airship did eventually land, the blond simply readjusted the strap on his shoulder and joined the throng of teens to board it.

Once he had eventually gotten onto the Airship, which had taken a while due to him being one of the last ones to reach the entrance, Naruto immediately looked around for somewhere out of the way to sit during the flight where he would not be disturbed. After a few minutes of searching, the blond settled down in a corner at one end of the craft's viewing gallery, making sure that his coat was still covering his tail. The blond's attention was soon drawn to a particularly excited and loud blonde girl in a tan jacket and weird belt-skirt thing as well as knee-high brown boots and an orange scarf around her neck who was tightly hugging a smaller dark-haired girl wearing a red cloak and a black blouse and skirt with matching stockings and black and red boots who then in turn started muttering something incomprehensible about knees.

Turning away from the strange spectacle, Naruto focused his attention inwards as he began to meditate, hoping that it would distract him from the motion of the Airship as he really did not want to throw up in front of his soon-to-be classmates. He quickly began the process of shutting out everything around him, though he did keep a small awareness of his immediate vicinity just to be on the safe side, and was soon completely ignorant of the Airship's slight jerking that accompanied its takeoff.

* * *

The former Jinchuriki was eventually brought out of his meditation by someone roughly shaking his shoulder. As he returned to full awareness, he immediately noted that the Airship was stationary, meaning that it had presumably arrived at Beacon Academy, and the large viewing gallery he was in was almost completely silent save for the sound of a mop moving along the floor. He opened his eyes and saw a young man standing in front of him with another mop held in his free hand.

"You awake, kid?" the man asked. "You should get going, the Airship landed about ten minutes ago and everyone else has gone."

Surprised by this, Naruto looked around and saw that all of the other students he had seen when boarding were indeed no longer there; apparently he had been meditating too deeply and missed the Airship docking. The only people on board were him and a trio of janitors who were mopping areas of the floor. With a quick thank you to the cleaner that had roused him, the blond slung his bag over his shoulder and headed out of the Airship, hoping that he hadn't missed anything important.

As soon as he exited the aircraft, Naruto couldn't help but stare in awe as he got his first look at Beacon Academy. Whilst the large road he was currently on wasn't all that impressive, the actual buildings of the academy were truly breathtaking, especially since he had never seen anything quite like them. The most eye-catching feature was the large tower that extended so high that the top was hidden by clouds. At the end of the road ahead of him, there were several huge stone archways that seemed to have small towers on the top. These archways were surrounding a large circular pond, although the word didn't do it justice calling it a lake didn't quite seem to fit either.

Beyond the waters were the actual buildings that made up Beacon and he presumed that that was where he was meant to go since nobody had told him, although that may have been because he missed the arrival. Not wanting to be late for anything, Naruto broke out into a quick jog. He wasn't entirely reassured by the complete lack of people on the road since it meant that there was probably some sort of meeting or something that they were all attending. He also absently noted that there was a shallow crater in the ground not too far from the Airship dock and briefly wondered what had caused it. Naruto arrived at the building just before the red cloaked girl he had seen earlier and a blond boy wearing a white chest plate and shoulder pads over a black hoodie with jeans and a sheathed sword on his left hip. Both of them seemed like that had hurried, though the boy was noticeably more winded than the girl as she didn't seem exhausted at all.

"Hey, is this where the new students are supposed to go?" the girl asked, turning to face Naruto. As she did so, he noticed that she had incredibly unusual silver eyes, something he had never seen before, and that her hair, which he had originally taken to be black, did in fact have a red tint to it. He also took note of the fact that she seemed to be a year or two younger than he was, meaning that she had been granted entry to the school early so she must have done something to impress the higher-ups.

"No idea. I got a little held up on the Airship and I only just got here," Naruto replied, not wanting to admit that he had been busy meditating to avoid airsickness. "I'm Naruto, by the way," he added, deciding that he should probably try and be friendly with the other students.

"Ruby," the girl replied, apparently quite happy that someone else seemed to want to be friends with her.

"I'm Jaune," the armoured blond added, having managed to catch his breath again. "What's with the hood? It seems a bit weird if you go around hiding your face."

"Hmm?" Naruto seemed a bit confused by that question before he realised that he still had his hood up. "I guess I just forgot to put it down after the Airship." With that, he quickly flipped it back revealing his ears to the pair since he didn't see any point in hiding them.

However, the girl didn't seem to hear his response as she was preoccupied with staring at him, or more specifically his ears. "Is there a problem?" he asked, his voice gaining a noticeable edge as he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Huh?" the girl seemed confused by his question before she realised that she had been staring at the blond's ears and probably not giving the best first impression. "No, no problem," she quickly brought her arms up in front of her in a placating gesture. "I've just never seen a Faunus with ears like yours before. They're kind of cute," the last bit was said so quietly that Naruto barely heard it, even with his sharper than normal hearing, but he couldn't help but chuckle at it.

"It's fine," Naruto replied as he accepted her explanation, realising that her staring had been out of confusion at his unique features rather than a dislike of Faunus. "I seem to be rather unique," this statement was punctuated by him lifting the back of his coat up enough to allow his tail wave around briefly. Ruby seemed somewhat transfixed by the appendage and only snapped out of whatever trance she was in when she heard Naruto chuckle again, causing her to flush slightly in embarrassment at being caught staring.

"How did you get your ears to hide so well in there?" Ruby asked without thinking, only to apologise when she grasped how tactless her question had been a few seconds later.

"I have my ways. Besides, you don't have to apologise, you're not the first person to ask that," the teen replied, as several other people he had met over the last few months had also expressed mild confusion at how such long ears could be hidden so well inside a hood. "Shouldn't we be going inside?" he added, indicating the door they were standing next to.

"Oh, right! We're going to miss the introduction meeting," Ruby said, already opening the door. She quickly slipped through, followed by Naruto and Jaune who were both walking at a more leisurely pace.

"By the way, where's all your stuff?" Naruto asked, realising that neither of the other two were carrying any bags.

"They took all the students' luggage ahead so we wouldn't have to lug it around. How come you still have yours?" Jaune answered whilst Ruby was looking around the large crowd of students, presumably trying to locate someone in particular.

"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" another girl's voice called out over the sea of teenagers, unknowingly cutting Naruto off before he could answer, and the vulpine teen followed the sound to the same blonde girl he had seen hugging Ruby on the Airship.

"I've got to go, that's my sister. I'll see you after the ceremony," Ruby told both boys before quickly making her way through the crowd to the waving blonde.

"Wait!" Jaune cried out, clearly not all that happy about being ditched so quickly. "Great. Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" he muttered to himself, sounding slightly depressed.

"What's the matter? Am I not good enough company for you?" Naruto replied with a slight smile, reminding Jaune that he wasn't alone. The vulpine teen also noticed that the other blond's exclamation had apparently caught the attention of an armoured girl with a long red ponytail and a large round shield attached to her back.

"No! No, it's just –" the armoured blond trailed off when he noticed that Naruto wasn't mad but instead found his rambling amusing.

"It's fine. Go mingle or something, I don't mind," the former Jinchuriki said, indicating the large crowd of teenagers in front of them with a sweep of an arm.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm not really a fan of huge crowds like this so I'm just going to stay here," Naruto responded, slipping his bag off of his shoulder and leaning against the wall next to the door. Whilst he hadn't really had a problem with crowds back in Konoha, the nine months he had spent alone in the wilderness after his arrival in this world had gotten him quite used to being by himself. The time he spent at Rinus' bar had helped but he still preferred to avoid big groups if he could, especially since most people would not be particular welcoming to someone with his extra features.

As Jaune wandered off into the gathering of students, Naruto glanced around the amphitheatre and then the crowd in an effort to find something to occupy himself with, absently noting that Ruby was still talking with her sister and Jaune seemed to be trying, and failing, to flirt with a random girl. His boredom was soon interrupted when he saw a grey-haired bespectacled man in a dark suit with a dark-green scarf around his neck and a cane in his hand approaching the microphone that was set up on the stage at the far side of the arena.

"Welcome to Beacon Academy, everyone. For those who don't know, I am Professor Ozpin, the headmaster. I'll keep this brief since I doubt any of you want to listen to an overly long speech," the man started, though it seemed like he had something else on his mind. "All of you have travelled here to broaden your knowledge and further your skills so that you may live out your lives protecting those who cannot protect themselves, an admirable goal. Whilst some of you here probably already believe yourselves to be capable enough I can guarantee that none of you are truly prepared for the hardships that the life of a Hunter is made of. Though I and the other teachers here will do our utmost to ensure that you are ready for the life you have chosen, whether or not you succeed here is ultimately up to you."

With his piece said, Ozpin backed away from the microphone before walking off of the stage. As he did, a blonde woman with glasses in a white top and a black skirt and cape stepped forwards, causing the students who had started talking amongst themselves to fall silent again. Naruto immediately recognised the woman as Glynda Goodwitch since she was one of the teachers who had been present for his entrance exam.

"You will spend tonight in the ballroom and then undergo your initiation tomorrow. Be prepared for anything that may occur. You are dismissed," Glynda said before she too walked off of the stage.

Immediately, the students started talking with each other and some of them started making their way back towards the door to leave. Just as Naruto was about to head out as well to avoid the incoming crowd, his ears picked up a commotion not too far away on the other side of the doorway. The Faunus girl he had seen at the dock in Vale, the rabbit-eared brunette, was stuck between a pair of boys, both of whom were wearing armour. Whilst Naruto couldn't quite make out what was being said due the noise being made by all of the other students, it was clear from the body language that they were not being entirely friendly.

At the sight, the blond couldn't help the low rumbling growl that escaped from his throat, something that immediately caught the attention of the girl standing a few feet away with a book in her hands. The girl had long wavy black hair with a black bow on top of her head and was wearing a white sleeveless undershirt and shorts and a black buttoned vest with coattails and matching stockings. Similarly-coloured ribbons were wrapped around both arms, a black detached sleeve adorned her left forearm and a cleaver-like blade rested on her back. She looked over at him before following his line of sight, the scene causing her own cat-like amber eyes to narrow. Unaware of this new attention, Naruto focused his killing intent on the two boys, making sure that nobody else felt a thing and unaware that his eyes had acquired almost imperceptible red glow, and was rewarded by the pair suddenly standing ramrod straight with their faces showing expressions of pure terror.

Despite being confused by the boys' abrupt action, the brunette quickly took advantage of the pause to slip away, though she did happen to notice Naruto glaring at the frozen teens when she was looking around to find the cause of their behaviour. Noticing this, the blond let his killing intent fade away, although he had briefly entertained the idea of increasing the potency of his monstrous energy enough to cause his targets to wet themselves or maybe even pass out, and gave the girl a friendly smile that was soon reciprocated when she realised that he was the one who had helped her.

Unknown to both, the black-haired bow-wearing girl had seen this interaction and also reached the same conclusion, making her wonder exactly what he could have done to cause that reaction in the boys, especially since he hadn't even moved. Still, she was happy that at least someone at Beacon was willing to stand up for the Faunus though she was a little concerned by the all too familiar glint in his eye that appeared when he glanced back at the two recovering boys as it usually indicated some kind of revenge plan. She was about to approach him to try and get a better idea of what sort of person he was, as well as potentially stop him from justifying humankind's usual less-than-stellar view of Faunus, when the blond hoisted his bag over his shoulder and headed outside himself, possibly to avoid the incoming mass of students. Barely a scant few minutes later, a familiar loud white-haired girl in a pale blue thigh-length dress under similarly-coloured bolero jacket with a red lining on the inside and white boots that reached about halfway up her calves pushed her way through the crowd before looking around in confusion.

"Where did that damn Faunus go?" the girl muttered to herself, the frustration clear in her voice. Needless to say that, after hearing that comment, the black-haired girl's already low opinion of the other girl immediately dropped.

* * *

Just after Professor Ozpin's speech ended and Glynda's instruction for the night delivered, Ruby Rose quickly resumed her retelling of the events that had occurred between getting ditched by her sister, Yang Xiao Long, and meeting up with her again in the amphitheatre to prove to her older sibling that she had actually managed to make friends, her story having been interrupted by the reappearance of a still unhappy Weiss Schnee and then by the Professors' words.

"...then me and Jaune finally ended up outside," here she gestured first to Jaune, who had appeared after hearing a sarcastic comment by Weiss about him, and then at the large doors where students were already leaving. "We met this other guy called Naruto, he seemed nice though I still have no idea how his ears fit in that hood so well," the last bit was said more to herself as she was still confused how they fit inside without making the hood bulge out.

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't his ears fit in his hood?" Yang asked, clearly puzzled by the statement.

"Naruto's a Faunus and he has long ears," Jaune explained nonchalantly, even going so far as to use his hands to give an idea exactly how big said ears were.

"Oh, that makes sense," Yang replied, clearly uncaring that her sister's other friend was a Faunus. "So where is he?"

"He said he wasn't too keen on large crowds so he ended up staying near the door. You might be able to see him from here. He has spiky blond hair, long ears on the sides of his head and a long dark brown coat," he added. Weiss, who was still nearby, perked up upon hearing that description as it matched the Faunus she had seen six months prior, even the coat was similar.

"Did he have tanned skin, blue eyes and weird lines on his cheeks?" the heiress asked, her mind quickly picking out any other details she could remember about him despite only seeing him once.

"Yeah, you know him?" Ruby replied, a little surprised but her own question went unanswered as the white-haired girl had immediately started pushing her way through the crowd, barking out ignored demands for people to move out of her way, as soon as she had gotten a response. "What was that about?"

"I don't know but I bet it'll be fun to watch," Yang answered with a grin, already moving to follow Weiss through the throng of students. She was soon followed by Ruby and Jaune, both curious how their new friend knew the short-tempered heiress.

* * *

Slipping between the people with surprising grace and ignoring the various conversations around her, Weiss quickly made her way towards the auditorium's doors. She had to know if the Faunus the other two had mentioned was the same one that had apparently hitched a ride on the Bullhead that has rescued her all those months ago. Whilst the description did sound exactly like she remembered him, after all how many people have whisker-like lines on their cheeks, she wouldn't know for certain until she actually saw him. At that thought, the heiress paused momentarily as she thought about how she should approach the confrontation. Though there was no proof that he was actually affiliated with the White Fang like her family had presumed, she would still have to be cautious in case he was and proved hostile. After all, there was always the possibility that he was at Beacon purely to try and kidnap her again.

If that was the case, then he would be in for a rude awakening. After the incident, she had practically thrown herself into her training with the sole purpose of ensuring that she would never be a victim like that again. Before her kidnapping, her time had been split between Hunter training and lessons on running the Schnee Dust Company so that she would be prepared when she eventually took over, but she now focused almost exclusively on her combat ability. She was not the helpless little girl she used to be, she had the skills to protect herself and she was proud of them, though some would say she was a little arrogant.

Despite the possibility, Weiss couldn't say for certain that he was a threat to her as her mind replayed the image of him on the cliff top. The wisps of smoke that had appeared around his arms just before he leapt off suggested that he could actually have been the hazy being that had fought against the White Fang members and she would swear that his hands had briefly turned into the same bone-white claws that her saviour had possessed, though she couldn't be sure that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her at the time. If that was the case, it would certainly explain his comment about gratitude. But if it was him, then why hadn't he said anything in the forest?

"Why do things have to be so confusing?" the heiress muttered to herself as she finally reached the doorway, only to see that her target was not there. "Where did that damn Faunus go?" she grumbled in frustration. She was so close to getting the answers to all of her questions and yet the one person who could provide those answers had already left.

"I thought you said he was here?" she snapped as Ruby, Yang and Jaune emerged from the thinning crowd.

"He was, maybe he left to avoid the other students?" Jaune suggested, slightly cowed but ultimately undeterred by how intimidating the heiress could be when irritated.

"If you want to talk to him, you could just wait until tonight. All of the students were told to sleep in the ballroom so he's bound to be there," Ruby suggested, a little miffed by her friend not waiting for her. None of those assembled noticed the black-haired girl present as she quietly slipped away.

* * *

Meanwhile, after having left the amphitheatre to avoid the oncoming rush of students, Naruto was walking around the school grounds, bored out of his mind and completely unaware of the frustration his abrupt departure was causing. Currently, he was looking for somewhere to sleep for the night since the idea of staying in the ballroom with all of the other students wasn't too appealing for him. His boredom wasn't helped by the fact that it was still fairly early in the afternoon and there was apparently nothing to do until the following day. He had at first considered getting something to eat but he hadn't known where the dining hall was, which had led to his current wandering as he tried to familiarise himself with the grounds.

The blond had since found the cafeteria, along with a few classrooms and a locker room, but they weren't serving any food just then so he had bought a few things from the vending machines and carried on with his trek. He had barely finished his packet of crisps when he finally got fed up of being stalked and decided to call out to the person who had been tailing him more or less since he had left the auditorium.

"Do you not have anything better to do than follow me around all afternoon?" The question had barely left his mouth when a black-haired girl with a bow on the top of her head walked out from behind a nearby tree.

"How did you know I was there?" she asked, curious as to how he had managed to notice her despite her skill at moving around whilst avoiding detection.

"You pick up all sorts of skills in my old line of work," Naruto replied, waving the question of as unimportant. Whilst he most certainly did not have to natural aptitude required to be a sensor-nin, most shinobi ended up refining that unexplainable sensation that everybody experiences when they feel like they are being watched into a kind of sixth sense that usually proved to be a great asset in the field. Sadly, that answer didn't seem like what she wanted to hear if the slight narrowing of her eyes was any indication. "So, why have you been following me?"

"I know that you helped that girl out back in the auditorium," she said.

"Your point is? It looked like she needed the help," Naruto explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was to him. "I don't like people who pick on others for things that are ultimately beyond their control. That still doesn't explain why you've been following me unless you don't like the fact that I helped her."

"Quite the opposite, I'm glad you did. It's just rare for someone to stand up for the Faunus, especially if they're one as well. In fact, the only Faunus that generally do, tend to do so quite violently," the girl explained, deciding to be somewhat blunt and see what the blond's reaction was. Even as she spoke, her hand slowly inched up towards the handle of her weapon above her shoulder so she wouldn't be caught by surprise if her suspicions proved correct.

"If you wanted a fight, you should have just said so," the vulpine teen sighed as he saw her actions. "Though I will warn you that I won't go down easily," he emphasised this statement by holding up his right hand and channelling some chakra, engulfing it in a small cloud of black smoke. He raised an eyebrow in confusion when the girl in front of him instantly stiffened, though she recovered quickly. "That's just confusing. Why would a Faunus be hostile to someone who helped out another Faunus?"

"What makes you think that I'm a Faunus?" the bow-wearing teen warily asked, wondering what exactly she had just experienced. She didn't know what it was but, for a moment, her instincts had screamed at her to be very careful around the blond and run away if possible.

"They're the only ones that have that reaction to me. Nobody else notices anything unless I focus on them," Naruto explained, not seeing much reason to hide that, especially since he could tell that she was confused by her own reaction. "You still haven't told me why you're here, you know."

"I was wondering what you're intentions were with those two bullies. I can tell you weren't done with them."

"Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not going to attack them or anything," he said, believing that she wanted to help him get back at them. "I was just going to prank them. Stuff like swiping all of their clothes in the middle of the night, dying their hair whilst they're sleeping, paint bombs, the simple stuff," he shrugged, still not sure what he was going to do.

"Simple stuff?" the girl repeated in confusion, wondering how any of that could be considered simple before ultimately dismissing it as unimportant. "So you're not going to hurt them?" she asked, just to be sure that her suspicions about him were wrong.

"No, that would make me the same as them," Naruto answered, still confused where she was going with this.

"Good, I was worried that you were planning on doing something more severe and I'd rather not see Faunus proving humanity's negative view of them."

"Oh. You could have just asked, you know?" the blond said, finally understanding that she just didn't want him to assault the bullies and further establish the view that Faunus were no better than wild animals, a view that had come about as a result of the actions of a group called the White Fang who had started out with peaceful protests but then turned to violence when they realised that they weren't getting anywhere. "I think we got off to a bad start. Why don't we start over? I'm Naruto."

"Blake. So what exactly did you do to those two?"

"Nothing much. Just the same sort of thing you felt but intensified and focused so that nobody else would sense it. What about you? Why are you hiding who you are?" Naruto asked, blatantly looking at the bow on the top of Blake's head when he asked the last question. "Are you ashamed about being a Faunus or something?"

"It's nothing like that. I'd just prefer that people see me for who I am and not what I am," Blake replied. With the main issue out of the way, the two of them carried on chatting about various things ranging from their backgrounds, which Naruto was deliberately vague about and noticed that Blake was doing the same, to what sort of stuff they were expecting at Beacon for a while before they ended up going their separate ways when it started getting late.

"Bye," Naruto called out, getting a simple wave over the shoulder as acknowledgement. Alone again, the blond resumed his random trek around the school's grounds, his thoughts briefly returning to all of the people he had met so far that day. They were all interesting in their own ways and he doubted that he would get all that bored at Beacon.

After another hour or so of aimless wandering, the teen decided to hit the cafeteria again in the hopes that they were serving by now as he would prefer an actual warm meal instead of more vending machine food. As it turned out, they were serving but were going to close in ten minutes as most of the students had already come and gone, leaving the large room quite empty.

Half a dozen bowls of ramen and several stupefied kitchen staff later and Naruto left the dining hall with a satisfied grin. He then ended up on the roof of one of the smaller buildings at Beacon, as he hadn't found a tree that looked large enough for him to sleep in without falling out and hadn't wanted to use a classroom in case he was discovered, and was soon fast asleep, using his bag as a pillow and his coat as a blanket.

* * *

Yawning to himself, Naruto blinked away the last remains of sleep as he sat up. A glance up at the sun showed that he had slept in a bit and a look at his watch told him that it was almost nine in the morning. He quickly stood up and stretched out the kinks in his body caused by such an unusual sleeping environment. Since he had no idea when the initiation was scheduled to start as it hadn't been mentioned the previous day, the blond gathered his things before jumping down from the roof and landing in a crouch, unfazed by falling several stories. After readjusting his bag again, he quickly made his way to the dining hall for some food, only to be surprised that there were only a handful of students there finishing their meal. That suggested that either the rest had already left or were still asleep. It soon became apparent that it was the former when no other students arrived and, by the time he was halfway through his breakfast, he was alone in the room.

"Would all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately," Glynda Goodwitch's voice ran out over an intercom that he had not noticed previously.

Realising that he was running late, Naruto quickly devoured what remained of his food and sped off in the direction of the cliff, with a quick stop off in the locker room to drop off his bag. When he finally got there, he saw the rest of the students all standing on silver tiles with Ozpin and Glynda opposite them, the former apparently in the middle of a speech.

"You!" A shout drew the blond's attention to the white-haired girl he had encountered all that time ago back in the forest who was currently glaring at him with barely concealed frustration. Before she could say anything else and before he could respond, the grey-haired professor cleared his throat to get their attention and gestured for the blond to stand on the vacant tile at the end of the line next to Jaune whilst Glynda frowned at his both lack of punctuality and the girl's outburst. The vulpine teen was actually somewhat relieved he had intervened as he honestly had no idea how to respond to the annoyed girl that he had rescued before she had almost gotten him killed after they'd arrived in civilisation. Since she was almost certainly unaware that he was the one who had helped her, her anger was undoubtedly a result of seeing that he was still alive despite the hostile actions of her family's guards and he would have to come up with some way of defusing the situation so that she didn't end up trying to kill him at some point.

"As I was saying, it is in your best interest to ensure that you are partnered with someone that you can work well with as they will be with you for the rest of your time here. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years," Ozpin spoke, presumably picking up from where was interrupted and ignoring Ruby's cry of despair.

"After you have partnered up, you will make your way to an abandoned temple at the northern end of the forest. The Emerald Forest is home to numerous Grimm so do not hesitate to use as much force as needed to reach your objective. Once you've made it to the temple, each pair will choose a relic from one of those present and bring it back here. There will be several instructors monitoring and grading you during the duration of this test but they will not intervene," the headmaster carried on, looking over all of the students to make sure that they all understood the implications of that last statement. "Are there any questions?"

When nobody raised their hands except Jaune, the headmaster instructed everyone to take their positions and, one by one, the tiles sprang up like springboards, launching their respective occupants high into the sky. After several questions from Jaune about landing strategies and parachutes, during which time more and more students were fired off towards the forest with the Schnee heiress sending a few more glances towards the Uzumaki before her own take off, the blond swordsman's tile shot up mid-question just moments before Naruto's own did.

As he flew through the air, Naruto wasn't really paying much attention to the other students' various methods of landing as manoeuvring through forests really wasn't much of a challenge for him, his upbringing as a Konoha shinobi making woodland movement practically second-nature. He simply sent a little chakra through his feet and legs to strengthen them once he got close to a tree and pushed off of the trunk towards another and then another, carefully slowing himself down with each rebound until he was moving slowly enough to drop to the ground without difficulty.

As he did this, he completely missed the young Schnee jumping from floating glyph to floating glyph in an attempt to catch him, only to lose him once he dropped below the treetops, as his attention was focused on what sort of challenges he would experience. The most action he had gotten since arriving in Vale had been dealing with some rowdy drunks and a few useless thieves and he was looking forward to being able to cut loose against some Grimm, sure they were no smarter than animals but some of them could put up a surprisingly good fight. Well, that and seeing who he would end up partnered with.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter (and the incredibly unimaginative chapter title) but numerous things were conspiring against me and I finally managed to get it done an hour ago. I know that I said the delay would be caused by missing information for the initiation and that the initiation itself is missing from this chapter but it was getting fairly long, it's the longest chapter so far, and I figured you'd all prefer an update that just covered the arrival at Beacon rather than wait for a chapter that had this and the initiation.**

******Also, before anyone says that Naruto got into Beacon too easily, Volume 2 Episode 2 'Welcome to Beacon' revealed that attending a school like Signal isn't strictly necessary for students to get in. Those schools are simply where people go to train so that they are strong enough to deal with Beacon's entrance exam. Some students do in fact get into Beacon without having attended a school like Signal simply by passing the entrance exam, Blake being an example.**

**On the topic of initiation, I'm still missing the information that I need so I don't know when the next chapter will come out, especially since there was no new RWBY episode this week so I don't know exactly when the info I need will be revealed.**

**Because of that, I've decided to throw you all a bone and give you some info regarding what I have planned for Naruto's team, or rather what I don't plan on doing. I already know what I'm going to be doing in regards to a team and it's something that I personally have never encountered before, though since I've only read a dozen or so RWBY stories (all of which are crossovers) it's probably not as original an idea as I'm making it out to be.**


End file.
